Jainism and Buddhism have much in common. Both were essentially moral codes rather than metaphysical or religious systems. Their main exponents Mahavira and Gautam came from Kshatriya families and were contemporaries. Their life stories reveal striking similarities. Both the religions owe their origin to the reaction against the existing religious practices, both stressed non-violence and showed deliberate indifference to the authority of the Vedas and the existence of Gods. Both the religions denied the efficacy of rituals.
They both started from the same fundamental principle that the world is full of misery, and the object of religion is to find means of deliverance from the endless cycle of births and deaths, which bring men again and again into this world. The karma or the individual’s action is the root cause of rebirth, emphasis is laid upon conduct and the practice of austerities in varying degrees of severity as the chief means of salvation rather than religious rituals and sacrifices. Both believed that salvation is attainable only by homeless ascetics though both regarded the life of the layman as an initial preparatory stage in the process.
Jainism and Buddhism both imply a system of philosophy and social organization with a code of morality and possessed a common background of Aryan culture. Both of them owed their origin to the kindred forces, whether intellectural, spiritual or social and may be viewed either as a revolt against the Brahmanical religion or as an outcome and modification of it by overstressing the ascetic side such as renunciation of the world, self- denial and Ahimsa.
Both Mahavira and Buddha preached in the common language of the people not in the generally unintelligible, Sanskrit. Both denounced caste system and pleaded social equality along with equality of men and women.
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The resemblance was so great that many scholars considered Jainism to be a branch of Buddhism. Both of them were products of the prevailing spirit of the time. No wonder that both travelled in the same direction upto a point in their search for truth. The two teachers lived and preached their religions in the same region and recruited their disciples from the same sections of people.